Curbing African American Freedom: Testimony of Edward Carter
Reconstruction was a particularly violent period in American History. Following Confederate defeat, violence, both rhetorical and real, swept across the region, state of Alabama, and even Tuscaloosa and its neighbor Northport. Incidents of night-riding and Klan activities targeted men like Edward Carter and their families.
The Ku Klux Klan hearings afforded a public forum for the former Tuscaloosa schoolteacher to share their personal traumatic experiences in order to effect reform. On November 8, 1871, Carter testified before the Congressional investigators in Columbus, Mississippi. His 3-page testimony reveals the reasons behind his family’s relocation from Tuscaloosa and highlights “the ways that black men’s absence from their homes left their families unprotected.” [1] The courage of Carter and others demonstrates their efforts to obtain justice for themselves, families, and communities, resistance to the extralegal violence, and efforts to bring about federal legislation.
A pdf version of his 1871 testimony before the Ku Klux Klan hearings is available here.
The Ku Klux Klan hearings afforded a public forum for the former Tuscaloosa schoolteacher to share their personal traumatic experiences in order to effect reform. On November 8, 1871, Carter testified before the Congressional investigators in Columbus, Mississippi. His 3-page testimony reveals the reasons behind his family’s relocation from Tuscaloosa and highlights “the ways that black men’s absence from their homes left their families unprotected.” [1] The courage of Carter and others demonstrates their efforts to obtain justice for themselves, families, and communities, resistance to the extralegal violence, and efforts to bring about federal legislation.
A pdf version of his 1871 testimony before the Ku Klux Klan hearings is available here.
Notes
[1] Kidada E. Williams, They Left Great Marks on Me: African American Testimonies of Racial Violence from Emancipation to World War I (New York: New York University Press, 2012), 41.
Source: United States Congress, Report of the Joint Select Committee Appointed to Inquire Into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States: Mississippi, Volumes II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), 1083-1085.
Source: United States Congress, Report of the Joint Select Committee Appointed to Inquire Into the Condition of Affairs in the Late Insurrectionary States: Mississippi, Volumes II (Washington: Government Printing Office, 1872), 1083-1085.
